Cascadia Advocate

Offering frequent news and analysis from the majestic Evergreen State and beyond, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's unconventional perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Monday, February 27, 2006

2004 Gubernatorial Election is Wikipedia's Featured Article for Today

I was somewhat surprised when I stopped by Wikipedia's main page earlier today and saw what the featured article of the day was (here's the teaser from the front page):

The Washington gubernatorial election of 2004 was a dramatic event, gaining national interest for its legal twists and turns and its extremely close finish. Three parties, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, and the Libertarian Party, fielded candidates. It is notable for being among the closest races in United States election history; the winner, Christine Gregoire, a Democrat, was elected after a second recount turned the election in her favor by a margin of 129 votes, or 0.0045%. Although Gregoire was sworn in as Governor of Washington on January 12, 2005, her opponent Dino Rossi did not formally concede and called for a re-vote due to concerns about the integrity of the election. The Republicans filed a lawsuit in Chelan County Superior Court contesting the election, in which the trial judge decided against the Republicans. Rossi chose not to appeal to the Washington State Supreme Court, thereby conceding the election on June 6, 2005.

That teaser (which is currently still on the Wikipedia Main Page) is actually a pretty good factual summary of what happened - and the article itself is pretty well written.

One of the contributors (it wasn't somebody from NPI) even inserted links in the end "References" section to Pacific NW Portal and (un)SoundPolitics, which I was pleased to see. It does say something about the role blogs played during the recounts, and especially later during the election challenge.

If you look back in the Archives for the Official Blog for May 2005-June 2005, you'll find at least three posts a day during the trial focusing on the gubernatorial election challenge. It's some of the most continuous, in-depth analysis I've ever written.

As I noted yesterday, since being inaugurated, Governor Christine Gregoire has proved to be an outstanding leader, capable of solving tough problems and sheparding landmark bills through the legislative process to her desk. If she can keep it up - and I have no doubt she can - she will be able to make a very strong case for why she should be reelected in 2008.